Partnership aims for smart automation to improve access to HIV diagnostic tool
Diagnostics for the Real World (DRW) has selected Bright Machines to the automate the production of the SAMBA Diagnostic platform.
It is hoped the platform will allow the company to scale manufacturing and better meet the demands of its user base.
DRW will now use a Bright Machines Microfactory to automate the California-based manufacturing of the test cartridges used in the company’s SAMBA II diagnostics device.
Adding a microfactory to the assembly and inspection phases of SAMBA II cartridge production could allow DRW to:
- Reduce assembly labour costs by two-thirds, enabling DRW to redeploy people across manufacturing operations to increase overall production output and capacity
- Speed up test cartridge assembly time from two minutes to 20 seconds per unit
- Increase annual production capacity by 10x to more than 1 million units a year
Jesse Lehga, vice president of operations & business development for DRW, said: "This cost savings and increased output will directly impact the price of our diagnostics technology, making our tests even more affordable and accessible around the world."
Software-Defined Manufacturing, which connects individual machines to a software layer to configure, monitor and manage operations, represents the next wave of industrial automation. In 2019, Bright Machines released its first product against this vision, Bright Machines Microfactories.
DRW, based in San Jose, California and Cambridge, United Kingdom, offers tests for infectious diseases, such as HIV, specifically designed for use in resource-limited environments. Developed at the Diagnostics Development Unit at the University of Cambridge, the diagnostic tools allow healthcare workers in remote regions of the world to quickly test and diagnose patients with infectious diseases directly at the point-of-care with test cartridges that require no refrigeration or cold-chain transport.
Dr Helen Lee, founder and CEO of DRW, said: "Our devices impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to centralized testing. Bright Machines is helping us quickly scale our production capacity to make our products even more accessible to remote areas."
Amr Hanspal, CEO of Bright Machines, added: "At Bright Machines, solving big, real-world problems is core to our mission. We admire Diagnostics for the Real World for the important work they’re doing, and we’re proud to partner with them in their mission to scale their ground breaking HIV testing technology to areas of the world that need it most."